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Barack Obama’s migrant shield anulled by US Supreme Court

US President Barack Obama in the White House briefing room in Washington.

The US Supreme Court has blocked Barack Obama’s bid to shield millions of migrants from deportation — a blow to the President that thrusts the charged issue to the frontline of the battle to succeed him.

Mr Obama dubbed the ruling “heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here” but warned his opponents they would not be able to thwart their dreams for much longer.

“In November, Americans have to make a decision about what we care about and who we are,” he declared, in a nod to the White House race between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump.

The court normally has nine members, but Justice Antonin Scalia died in February and the Senate has refused to vote on Mr Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, to replace him.

The deadlock leaves Mr Obama’s policy in limbo, like the fate of more than four million undocumented immigrants who stood to be given US work permits under the controversial plan.

“I promise you this, though, sooner or later immigration ­reform will get done. Congress is not going to be able to ignore America forever,” Mr Obama said. “The fact that the Supreme Court wasn’t able to issue a decision today doesn’t just set the system back further — it takes us further from the country that we aspire to be.”

Mrs Clinton was also quick to pivot from the defeat to the electoral battle ahead. “Today’s heartbreaking SCOTUS immigration ruling could tear apart five million families facing ­deportation. We must do better,” she tweeted.

Mr Trump fired out a response while promoting a golf course in Scotland. “SC has kept us safe from exec amnesty — for now. But Hillary has pledged to expand it, taking jobs from Hispanic & ­African-American workers,” he said in the first of a series of tweets assailing Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton’s policy of “open borders”. Mr Trump has vowed to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep out “rapists” and drug dealers. He promised to suspend all immigration by Muslims and by people “from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe or our allies”.

Mrs Clinton has vowed to “create a pathway to citizenship, keep families together, and enable millions of workers to come out of the shadows”.

Congressional Republicans have not all echoed Mr Trump’s stance, but welcomed the court stalemate as a victory for efforts to stop Mr Obama using executive authority to bypass congress.

“The Supreme Court ruling today affirms that the President’s unilateral actions, which have marked his lame-duck term, will not stand,” Republican senator John McCain said.

Frustrated by congress’s ­repeated failure to pass immigration reform, in November 2014 Mr Obama issued a decree to allow migrants whose children are legally resident to apply for permits. This would have shielded families from deportation while the issue of their status was determined, but the governors of 26 Republican-led states challenged the order — plunging the four million people potentially ­affected into uncertainty.

A second measure aimed to expand on a program that grants a reprieve to immigrants who ­entered the country as children.

Federal courts in Texas and Louisiana put the measures on hold and the case passed to the Supreme Court, which remained split along progressive-conservative lines yesterday.

Mexico’s government — whose nationals make up about half of all unauthorised immigrants in the US, according to Pew Research — openly supports Mr Obama’s effort to limit the deportation of long-settled families.

A foreign ministry statement said Mexico “reiterates its conviction that the adoption of these programs would have a positive impact in the lives of millions of families of immigrants, as well as the development of the economy and the social fabric of the United States”.

Human Rights Watch says the threat of deportation leaves millions of people “exceptionally vulnerable” to serious abuses in the workplace, to sexual assault and to a lack of police protection.